About

Jeff Albert is a musician, music technologist, and educator. He joined the faculty of the School of Music at the Georgia Institute of Technology in August of 2023, and served in a variety of roles at Loyola University New Orleans from 2010-2023. In May of 2013, he became the first graduate of the PhD program in Experimental Music and Digital Media at Louisiana State University, where his teachers included Stephen David Beck and Jesse Allison, and he was a founding member of the Laptop Orchestra of Louisiana (LOLs). He also holds degrees from Loyola University – New Orleans, where he studied with Dick Erb and John Mahoney, and the University of New Orleans, where he studied jazz with Ellis Marsalis, Harold Battiste, Ed Petersen, and Steve Masakowski. He has also served on the faculty of Xavier University of Louisiana and the University of New Orleans. Jeff’s areas of research include improvisation, performance paradigms for live computer music, and audio pedagogy. Jeff has given presentations at the conferences of the Society for ElectroAcoustic Music in the United States, the Symposium for Laptop Ensembles and Orchestras, the International Society for Improvised Music, the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium, and the inaugural Symposium on Integrated Composition Improvisation and Technology. His article “Improvisation as Tool and Intention: Organizational Approaches in Laptop Orchestras and Their Effect on Personal Musical Practices” was published December of 2012 in Critical Studies in Improvisation/Études critiques en improvisation.

Most of Jeff’s compositions are for his jazz groups or electronics with or without real time human performers. His works have been performed by the New Orleans New Music Ensemble and Versipel New Music, and in recital by Matthew Wright and Alexandria Smith.

Jeff Albert leads a bit of a double life as a trombonist. He is an improviser and creative musician who draws on the jazz tradition, and he is a working professional who plays just about any type of music that uses trombone or bass trombone. He relishes both roles: artist and craftsman.

Jeff has been named in the Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll Rising Star Trombone category most of the years since 2011, which should have been enough time for his star to rise… He has released albums on RogueArt and Clean Feed Records, toured and recorded with Hamid Drake’s Bindu Reggaeology band, and co-led The Lucky 7s with Jeb Bishop. His 2020 record Unanimous Sources was named a top 10 jazz record of the year in the Boston Globe. In 2022, he performed on the world premieres of Mars Williams’ “Devil’s Whistle” and Ken Vandermark’s “Two Cities Large” which was commissioned by the Instigation Festival. He has performed in improvised settings with most of the improvised music practitioners in New Orleans and Chicago, as well as a number of European based artists, so we will avoid the long list of names.

Jeff played his first paying gigs on trombone in the 1980’s, while still in high school in Lafayette, Louisiana. He moved to New Orleans in 1988 and has been a part of the musical scene there ever since. He has played trombone, bass trombone, bass trumpet, and laptop with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also played with the New Orleans Opera, Jefferson Performing Arts Society, Verispel New Music, Musaica, and a wide range of freelance classical performances. He can be heard many of the soundtracks recorded in New Orleans, including the 2019 Best Picture Academy Award winning film “Green Book.” He has accompanied Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder, Lou Rawls, Johnny Mathis, Natalie Cole, Peter Cetera, and others.

Jeff has had the honor of getting to work with some of the foundational artists of New Orleans music. He has been one of George Porter, Jr.’s Runnin’ Pardners since 2003, and horn arranger and trombonist for The Meters from 2015 until their final performance in 2017. He played in Wardell Querzergue’s Big Band, was on “Deacon John’s Jump Blues” album and concert film, is a member of Luther Kent and Trick Bag, and Zigaboo Modeliste’s Foundation of Funk and Funk Revue. He has accompanied Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Aaron Neville, Irma Thomas, Pete Fountain, Ernie K-Doe, Walter “Wolfman” Washington, and many other New Orleans greats. He wrote the horn parts and played trombone on Bobby Rush’s “Porcupine Meat”, which won the Best Traditional Blues Album Grammy in 2017, and played on Pretty Lights’ “Color Map of the Sun” which was nominated for a Grammy. Jeff also appears on the U2 & Elton John recording of “Bang a Gong (Get it On)” from the Hal Willner produced Marc Bolan tribute “Angel Headed Hipster.”

Download a pdf of Jeff's (mostly complete) discography here.

If you want to find out about Jeff's other lives as an academic, composer, or computer musician, visit Jeff's Georgia Tech site.

Subscribe to Jeff's monthly(-ish) email newsletter here.

Sometimes Jeff writes and podcasts at Scratch My Brain

Links to socials and such.

Recordings

This area has information on some recent recordings, with links to get the music, usually from Bandcamp or some other artist affiliated place. Much of this is also available in all of the usual streaming spots if that is how you like to do it. Download a pdf of Jeff's (mostly complete) discography here.

A youtube playlist of performances (and some interviews/presentations) featuring Jeff. The sources and quality vary a bit.